I need to note something at the beginning of this post that really should have been said on day 1 of this trip to Sedona: these three days of hiking north of Phoenix weren’t posted until 2023 because things slipped through the cracks. It’s been stated in other posts I’ve not always been diligent in keeping up with this blog and tragically, there were no notes about this adventure, so whatever is written here are musings pulled out of thin air.

At the time we took this journey away from home, we were escaping the confines of being in Phoenix, which was becoming oppressive because, as I said on day 1 of these posts, we’d recently come off our first whitewater rafting trip down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. This was our way of repairing a small part of us missing being in nature.

As I moved to post these entries, triggered by the creation of our massive travel index that’s been a work in progress, I’m looking at these photos for the first time in more than a dozen years.

While the images are familiar, there’s also an otherness to them: I’m surprised by what I captured, such as with this particular shot.

Other images might just be standard fare, such as a look at the trail we’re hiking out on, but seeing the colors of fall and reminiscing where we were at that moment in our lives is a pleasant re-encounter.

Obviously, it was a beautiful weekend out here, and the views on the Boynton Canyon Trail were spectacular.

Considering this is one of the most popular short hikes in the area, the trail was not as quiet as yesterday’s, but as it was the day after Thanksgiving, people were probably spending time with family because it could have been a lot more crowded.

I wonder if we revisited these trails today if they’d be overrun?

Good thing that, at least pictorially, I’m at the end of the trail, which also means we’ll leave Sedona at this juncture to visit a place nearby.

This is Tuzigoot National Monument in Clarkdale, about 20 miles west of Sedona.

The pueblo was built over 600 years ago by the Sinagua people.

We spend a good amount of time here this afternoon following the trail down to the river that is the namesake of the Pueblo ruins. While we call it Verde River today, the old Tonto Apache name for the river was Tuzigoot, meaning crooked waters.